Researchers at the University of Georgia have identified a previously unknown process that many bacteria, including those that cause disease in humans, use to survive. Their discovery could lead to new therapies for bacterial ...

By loading magnetic nanoparticles with drugs and dressing them in biochemical camouflage, Houston Methodist researchers say they can destroy blood clots 100 to 1,000 times faster than a commonly used clot-busting ...

Alzheimer's disease is no respecter of fame or fortune. Former US president Ronald Reagan had it. Legendary AC/DC guitarist Malcolm Young has been diagnosed. Hazel Hawke suffered until her death in 2013. ...

Among blood donors with normal hemoglobin levels, low-dose oral iron supplementation, compared with no supplementation, reduced the time to recovery of the postdonation decrease in hemoglobin concentration in donors with ...

When we think of how we fight disease, the image of cells in our immune system fending off microbial invaders often comes to mind. Another strategy our bodies can employ is to cut off the enemy's supply lines and effectively ...

High brain iron levels have been associated with neurological diseases, including multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease. Even healthy adults have higher iron concentrations in their ...

It's been known for decades that some metals, including iron, accumulate in human tissues during aging and that toxic levels of iron have been linked to neurologic diseases, such as Parkinson's. Common belief ...

Researchers from Tanzania and South Africa, who are part of the Cochrane Infectious Disease Group, hosted at LSTM, have conducted an independent review to assess the effect of intermittent preventive antimalarial treatment ...

Development of new drugs for treatment of disease is an expensive, time-consuming and labour-intensive effort for both pharmaceutical companies and academics. For the past 15 years, "cost per approval" of ...

An analysis of liability claims related to esophageal cancer screening finds that the risks of claims arising from acts of commission (complications from screening procedure) as well as acts of omission (failure to screen) ...

Mothers of children with autism are significantly less likely to report taking iron supplements before and during their pregnancies than the mothers of children who are developing normally, a study by researchers with the ...

An experimental drug designed to help regulate the blood's iron supply shows promise as a viable first treatment for anemia of inflammation, according to results from the first human study of the treatment published online today in Blood, the Journal of the American Society o ...

Iron

Iron (pronounced /ˈаɪ.ərn/) is a chemical element with the symbol Fe (Latin: ferrum) and atomic number 26. Iron is a group 8 and period 4 element. Iron and iron alloys (steels) are by far the most common metals and the most common ferromagnetic materials in everyday use. Fresh iron surfaces are lustrous and silvery-grey in colour, but oxidise in air to form a red or brown coating of ferrous oxide or rust. Pure single crystals of iron are soft (softer than aluminium), and the addition of minute amounts of impurities, such as carbon, significantly strengthens them. Alloying iron with appropriate small amounts (up to a few per cent) of other metals and carbon produces steel, which can be 1,000 times harder than pure iron.

Iron-56 is the heaviest stable isotope produced by the alpha process in stellar nucleosynthesis; heavier elements than iron and nickel require a supernova for their formation. Iron is the most abundant element in the core of red giants, and is the most abundant metal in iron meteorites and in the dense metal cores of planets such as Earth.